The EDM industry has been promising to do better on gender representation for long enough that someone finally stopped waiting and started booking.
When Rach Brosman started going to raves in New York City, she kept noticing something that would eventually become impossible to ignore: the people behind the decks looked nothing like the people on the dancefloor. Women were showing up to these events in droves, spending their money, losing their minds to the music and then watching men take credit for the experience.
According to data from female:pressurea multinational collective of researchers working to quantify the gender distribution of artists performing at electronic music festivals worldwide, female acts comprised just 9.2% of lineups in 2012, a number that has since ballooned to 30%.
Progress, technically, though “we went from almost none to some” is a bar so low you could trip over it at a festival’s chicken tender vendor before spending $30 on them. That’s another issue entirely, but we digress.
Brosman wasn’t even part of the music industry back then. She was merely a fan, which meant she had an unobstructed view of the absurdity. So she built something they would notice.
Support Women DJs launched in February 2024, and it has moved fast. Brosman’s organization has planned over 100 NYC events with all-femme lineups, launched chapters in six cities and secured partnerships with Spotify, Equinox, Ultra Records and Armin van Buuren’s storied Armada label, among others.
Credit: Pixie Dream Media
14 years to reach 30% gender parity was too long for Brosman, who launched SWDJs for the women who have long languished through this stubborn, molasses-slow infrastructure. These days, most advocacy initiatives start and end with a childish TikTok rant or virtue-signaling LinkedIn post crafted with ChatGPT, but she’s actually building an alternative so visible and well-attended that ignoring it became the harder choice.
Her model is deceptively simple: stop asking for a seat at the table and just throw a better party. And its embedded lesson is one the industry has historically refused to learn on its own, rooted in the notion that audiences do not need to be educated into caring about gender equity on lineups. They just need to be shown what it looks like when it exists, and they’ll keep coming back for it.
Whether or not that philosophy can scale to the world’s largest EDM festivals remains to be seen. In the meantime, we caught up with Brosman to dissect the scene’s gender representation issue and discuss how SWDJs is bridging to gap.
EDM.com: You founded Support Women DJs in February 2024. What was the specific moment or breaking point that made you decide a new organization was the answer rather than working to reform existing ones?
Rach Brosman: At the time, I was just a raver. I wasn’t part of the industry yet, so I wasn’t aware of any existing groups supporting women in the space. I was going to shows at popular venues across NYC and kept noticing how rarely women appeared on the lineups.
It felt confusing and frustrating as a fan. I wanted to create something visible and accessible that could cut through to the community- something ravers like me would actually see and engage with.
Credit: Image courtesy of Support Women DJs
EDM.com: Someone could make the argument that “all-femme” lineups inadvertently isolate women into a niche category. How do you ensure SWDJs disrupts the “boys club” ecosystem rather than just building a parallel, separate one?
Rach Brosman: Support Women DJs is led entirely by a femme team, which means the vision and decisions behind what we do come from lived experience. This isn’t a case of promoters using an “all-female lineup” as a tagline-. It’s women actively creating the change we want to see.
Our goal isn’t to exist as a separate niche, but to challenge the status quo by making women more visible and supported in spaces where they’ve been underrepresented. We’re lucky to work with amazing collaborators across the scene, including men who are dedicated allies.
EDM.com: Many argue that booking women allows major promoters to simply check a diversity box without actually doing the hard work of integrating them on a systemic level. How exactly do you envision SWDJs using the “all-femme” format as a Trojan horse for that broader industry integration?
Rach Brosman: We create consistent, tangible opportunities for women DJs to be seen, heard and connected within the industry. Every year we platform hundreds of women through initiatives like our weekly radio show, monthly club nights, workshops, exclusive industry mixers, social media spotlights and chapter events across the country. At our Brooklyn open decks alone, we book 10 DJs every week.
Each of these platforms gives women the chance to develop their craft, perform in front of new audiences and build the relationships that lead to bigger opportunities. I have seen more and more women on NYC lineups since the creation of SWDJs, so it’s been cool to see the ripple effect.
EDM.com: On the other hand, some female DJs actively resist being booked because they’re women. They want slots on merit alone, and worry that visibility initiatives can feel like a pink ghetto. How do you hold space for that perspective without letting it become an argument for inaction?
Rach Brosman: I understand and respect that perspective. Many women want to be recognized purely for their talent, and that’s a valid goal. At the same time, the reality is that there are still structural barriers in the industry, and initiatives like ours help create the visibility and opportunities that make true merit-based recognition more possible.
The impact we’re seeing, both in the industry and in people’s real lives, reinforces that this work matters. So we’re going to keep doing it.
Credit: Pixie Dream Media
EDM.com: Even as the 30% booking rate grows, are you finding that women are being disproportionately funneled into certain sub-genres while others remain predominantly male?
Rach Brosman: Certain sub-genres still skew more male than others. Drum & bass, for example, remains male-dominated while techno has seen a strong wave of women who are actively leading the scene. Dubstep music also seems to be moving in that direction, with newer artists like ALLEYCVT and CHYL helping pave the way for a more femme and Gen Z driven bass scene.
Tech house and “frat bro” adjacent scenes still have a long way to go, but that also means there’s a lot of opportunity for women DJs to break through in those spaces.
EDM.com: Ageism in electronic music hits women much earlier and harder than men, with DJs like Tiësto and David Guetta headlining into their late 50s while women are often pushed out. How is SWDJs tackling the unspoken expiration date placed on female artists?
Rach Brosman: One way we combat ageism is by honoring the older women in our industry: the trailblazers and pioneers who paved the way. We have so much to learn from them. For example, I recently did a live interview with Stacey Hotwaxx Hale at Sound Collective, and I’ve never seen a room so captivated by every word she shared.
Beyond celebrating our industry elders, we also create safe spaces at our open decks, encouraging women of all ages to spin for the first time. We feature mothers and women well into their 50s and 60s at our events, showing that talent and opportunity have no expiration date.
EDM.com: You’ve partnered with Spotify, a company whose streaming algorithm appears to historically favor established, male-dominated back catalogs. Of the platform’s 100 most-streamed artists of all-time, only 22 are women. Do you believe you can leverage this partnership to actually override the inherent biases of the company’s algorithm? How exactly?
Rach Brosman: We’ve been fortunate to partner with Spotify’s DJ Club to host open decks for our femme DJ community here in NYC, which is always an absolute blast. I am confident Spotify is actively working to improve representation, as seen in initiatives like Artists to Watch 2026 and playlists such as Women of Electronic. I see our partnership as a reflection of their commitment to promoting diversity in dance music.
Credit: Pixie Dream Media
EDM.com: Flying the flag of a disruption movement in a notoriously stubborn industry takes a considerable psychological toll. How do you navigate the advocacy burnout that so often sidelines the very women trying to fix the ecosystem?
Rach Brosman: Thank you for asking! The mental and emotional labor of this work is intense, especially when I’m putting myself out there on social media every day. But ultimately, I am so grateful for this project and all the amazing people it has brought into my life. It’s made me more resilient and confident.
I’ve also learned the importance of boundaries. Sundays are now sacred “me days” completely free of to-do lists and social commitments, which helps me recharge for a full week of work and late nights.
EDM.com: If the EDM industry miraculously hit 50/50 gender parity tomorrow, what is the next major systemic threat to women in dance music that the scene is entirely ignoring right now?
Rach Brosman: Even if gender parity were achieved, harassment and assault remain a serious, ongoing issue in the scene, as recent reports from the hard techno community have shown. The industry needs to hold perpetrators accountable, de-platform those who harm others and prioritize believing women.
EDM.com: In 10 years, what’s the version of this story that makes you feel like you built something real versus the version where SWDJs was a moment that festivals absorbed and moved past without actually changing?
Rach Brosman: I already feel like we’ve built something incredibly real, creating opportunities, friendships, memories and mindset shifts for thousands of people. Over the next 10 years, my goal is to grow the platform so it can positively impact millions of music lovers. Looking forward, I can’t wait to see the women in my community flourish, lead and shape the future.
Follow Support Women DJs:
Instagram: instagram.com/supportwomendjs
TikTok: tiktok.com/@supportwomendjs
Spotify: tinyurl.com/yn4txk96
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